(String Matching Algorithms,An Applicatione ti ISAE and ISTAT Firms's Registers)

The aim of the paper is to develop algorithms for the matching of strings from two different registers of Italian enterprises. This makes effective the possibility of integrating the firm-level information collected by ISAE (Institute for Studies and Economic Analyses) with the one gathered by the Italian NSI. The name of the company is the reference information used for string matching. The first procedure is based on a backward recursive application of the critical factorization method. In the second algorithm, a shifting rule is defined based on the positions of blanks within the reference text T. About 80% of the units in ISAE register of business enterprises have been exactly matched. This suggests that the role of firms’ demography should be adequately taken into account to get satisfactory results and confirms the reliability of the proposed algorithms. Some structural characteristics of ISAE sampled firms can be now accounted for.